Awake: Bastila's Redemption
by Shadows of a Dream
Summary: AU. DSMRevan/Bastila. When Darth Revan orders the Sith Empire to strike on Talravin, Bastila's homeworld, the Sith apprentice finds a flicker of light within herself - but can she ever again be a Jedi, when returning to the light would mean betraying the only love she has left? Please R&R! Also available on Figment under username Laura Genn.
1. We Conquer Talravin

**Awake**

Raw, unrefined words are clumsy things, uneven at the edges, crudely shaped, tasting strange on the tip of the tongue. But the Dark Lord forges them into weapons.

I stand at Darth Revan's side on the dais, my arms held stiffly at my sides, my eyes focused impassively on the gathering beneath us. Rows upon rows of identical imperial uniforms line the Rakatan beach, stark gray against the dying scarlet swath of the sunset, a colorless slash between sky and sea. Behind the officers, there are the soldiers. There is nothing to set one soldier apart from the next. The columns of Sith armor flash silver, the sharper edges gleaming a bloody red in the half-light.

The first time I stood on this dais, named before all the Sith Empire as the chosen apprentice of the Dark Lord, the cheers of the crowd made my pulse rise in my throat. Afterward, when I receded to my private chambers in the Rakatan temple, my breathing came short and fast. Revan found me there, settling beside me on the small bed. _They are only pawns, Bastila, _he told me. _They are nothing to those like us. Like you._

Today, I observe the crowd without fear. I feel the solidity of my will in my fist, like a sphere of dark energy, and imagine it enfolding the crowd, pressing down on them, making them kneel before my command. A smile lifts my lips, and I think Revan must see it, for he glances absently in my direction. The mask of Mandalore the Ultimate hides his face even from me. After a moment he looks away.

Then he opens his mouth, and even in the vastness of the throng, I swear all cease to breathe.

The speeches of Darth Revan never fail to mesmerize me. He speaks of a privileged remnant, a dark power birthed in shadows, a brilliant dawn of conquest and resurrection. He names the worlds that have already fallen before the durasteel fist of the renewed Sith Empire: Taris, a black tear in the fabric of the galaxy; Dantooine, a swirl of galactic dust; then the proud forests of Kashyyyk, the desolate deserts of Tatooine, the fathomless oceans of Manaan, the archaic crags of Korriban.

There are other worlds in the list, as well, but soon they all swirl together. Like individual notes in a symphony, they become a single entity. My heart rises into my neck, pounds at the back of my throat.

"This is our age," Revan says, and only then do the cheers begin to ripple through the crowd. Hypnotic. Savage. Consuming. "Now is the day when the Sith Empire will seize its greatest prize, its most honorable victory, the throne of the galaxy. Now we shall conquer the Core Worlds."

The throng roars.

My breath hitches, and I don't know why.

"Tomorrow, it begins," Revan says, his voice effortlessly riding over the crowd, the crest of a wave over an ocean of faithful followers. "Tomorrow, we conquer Talravin."

_Talravin_.

One word, and I am a child again.

I am in my father's arms, breathing the scent of pine needles that lingers on his hands and in his rich, brown hair. I am listening to my mother's lullaby beneath a sky alight with stars, stars, stars. I taste the wild air, feel the soft earth between my bare toes. I laugh, a high clear sound that startles the birds, and they wing away in a flutter of color, gone into the distance.

Revan does not look at me. For the first time, I am glad of it. A single tear traces the pale, pale skin of my cheek, and I wonder that eyes such as mine – eyes turned to sulfurous yellow by the taint of the Dark Side – might still produce such a delicate, crystal tear.

I wipe the tear away with the back of my hand. No others follow. It is all well and good; a Sith apprentice does not cry.

I look again at Revan's mask. When others look away, I wonder, does a stray tear stain the metal?

**~x~X~x~**

**A/N: Thank you for reading this, truly. This may or may not be updated in the near future; I'm writing a YA high fantasy novel but the words there aren't flowing, so I took a break and kept the writing muscles alive with some fanfic. If the book starts flowing again, I may leave this for a while; if not, expect an update soon.**

** Please review. The Force favors those who do so. ;)**


	2. You Didn't Tell Me

_A Sith apprentice does not cry._

Alone in my chambers, hidden away in the heart of the Rakatan temple, I feel it. A wriggling thing in the pit of my stomach. A ribbon of faint trembling behind my ribs. A tendril of ice that slithers up my spine. A quivering cold in my fingertips.

In a moment, I am shaking – horrible, racking shakes. I dig my fingernails into the intricately styled curls of my hair until it hurts. My throat closes in on itself, and I tilt my head back, air slowly trickling into my lungs. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale.

My breath catches.

I nudge the control panel on the wall beside me, and the door of my chambers hisses closed. I am plunged into darkness. It enfolds me, thrills me, echoes me, and only once the darkness is complete do I allow my legs to give way.

I slide back against the cold durasteel. Sink to the ground. Bury my head in my hands. Press the heels of my hands into my eyes, letting the burning behind my eyelids intensify.

A red haze flickers in the blackness of my closed eyes, a ribbon of emotion that I might have once severed in terror. Instead, I acknowledge it. I feed it. I follow the crimson strand to its source, a tangle of fault lines and feelings, and I feel it pulse with my heartbeat.

Tears become anger. It is effortless. I open my eyes, and the darkness of my chambers shimmers scarlet. I feel my power rise and taper to a point, deadly as a sword's edge. At my fingertips, thin streams of blue lightning dance and spark, weaving all the way up to my wrists.

I can breathe again.

I rise to my feet, the desire for tears gone from me. I am reckless, turbulent, feral, and it makes me feel alive.

**~x~X~x~**

Darth Revan finds me in the graveyard, beneath the bulging white eye of the Rakatan moon. I sense him before I see him, feel his presence in the Force even before he speaks.

"Seeking solace among the dead?"

I shake my head. "There is great darkness here," I say, scanning the crooked, unmarked headstones of the alien graves. "It energizes me."

This is where the last shreds of the Infinite Empire were obliterated. This is where Revan poured out the blood of the last Rakata, and made the One watch while each victim slowly died, leaking crimson into the dust.

"You're restless," says Revan.

I bite my lip. Sometimes, I curse the Bond between us, wondering at what twisted games the Force has chosen to play. "I said no such thing."

"But you are." Revan saunters nearer, and I know that he has shed the Mandalorian mask, for I feel his warm breath at the nape of my neck. "I can feel it."

"Can you, now?"

"Like a gathering storm."

The closeness of his body makes my heart race. "Then I'm restless," I say, my blood like lightning. "Why does it concern you?"

He laughs darkly. "You are my apprentice, Bastila Shan."

I smirk. "Is that all, now?"

As compared to the ruling of a resurgent Sith Empire, this... this _thing _between us is so easy. I know his every thought, his every desire, and he mine. In battle, we are an unstoppable maelstrom, a catastrophy of unadulterated power. Outside of battle...

Revan's fingers twine with mine. "Perhaps not all."

There was never an elaborate ceremony or public proclamation. The night after pledging myself to Revan as his apprentice, after retiring to our chambers, I gave myself over, completely and utterly. I pledged myself to him as something far more than an apprentice. He did the same. And it was done.

Outside of battle, I am Darth Revan's wife.

I lean back against him, feeling the strength of his body against me, the firm planes of his chest. His arms entrap me and hold me there.

"Talravin." The word emerges, unbidden, from my lips. It tastes of poison. "You didn't tell me."

Revan sighs. "There was nothing to tell."

"It's my homeworld," I bite out. "You know that."

"Yes."

"I grew up there."

"Yes."

"It houses my last memories of my father."

"Yes."

His arms are suddenly too tight around me. I pull away and stare into the depths of his golden, blazing eyes. "You could have told me," I say.

"I could have," Revan replies. "I also could have dismissed your mother as a monster when we met her on Tatooine."

Fury burns bright in the back of my skull. "That isn't –"

"I also could have destroyed the Holocron you hide beneath your bed," says the Dark Lord.

My breath hitches. "I didn't..."

"Did you think you could keep secrets from me, Bastila?"

"Surely you must understand," I say, my chest hollow. "My father... It's all I have left of him... It's the only way I can –"

"I want you to command the _Leviathan_," Revan says, his face drawn into the semblance of perfect calm.

I blink. "What?"

"I want you to lead the strike team at Talravin."

My voice rises an octave, and I can hear the contemptible anguish in my voice, but it doesn't matter. "You can't ask that of me."

"I already have."

I take a step away. "My father –"

"Your father is dead, Bastila."

"My father _loved _me," I snarl through my teeth. "My father loved _Talravin_."

"Then it is a blessing that he will not witness its final destruction."

The graves beneath this earth seem to whisper.

"Do you understand what you're doing to me?" I ask, crossing my arms against the chill.

Revan lays a hand on my shoulder, his grip firm to the point of pain. "The past is a vice we must all escape," he says. "You are no longer the girl on Talravin. And you alone can free yourself."

Sorrow twists in my gut, mutates into rage. My hand finds the smooth hilt of my lightsaber; I delicately unhinge it from my belt. "I am still Bastila Shan," I say. "And I will not dishonor the ghost of my father."

Revan cocks his head. "Are you to fight me, then?"

My saberstaff ignites in a flash of synthetic bloodshine. "If it will make you listen."

Revan smiles, a playful light in his yellow, near-feline eyes. "Then we fight," he says, and lightning pierces my chest like a shooting star.

Ours is a wild, untamed sort of duel, like the ritual initiation of some forgotten tribe – all unrestrained force and crackling power. He knows my heart, and I know his soul. In each other and in the Force, we are absorbed, and yet we are not consumed.

Our duel feels infinite, and yet is lasts for mere minutes. The burn I give him, tracing down along the curvature of his spine in a sweep of scarlet sparks, does not even disrupt his form. A nearly negligent flip of his wrist, and I land on my back, gasping for air.

He looms over me, a panther among the graves, his lightsaber a blood-red claw. I feel him in my head, prying, seeking, knowing. My pulse pounds.

My breathing is jagged. "Do you care to finish me off, _Master_?"

He raises a hand, and my saberstaff deactivates in my very fingers. He sheathes his weapon. I watch warily.

"Why do you fight me, Bastila?" He laughs shortly; then he sighs. "Why do you fight, when everything you are, everything you have yet to become, is bound to me?"

Revan likes to talk. I seize my chance, push off with the Force, and come flying to my feet, already surging forward to –

And then I can't remember.

Because Revan's lips are pressed to mine, Revan's hands are hot against my face, the Dark Lord's body radiates darkness and power and hunger, and it's all I can do not to forget my own name.

When he pulls away, his hands tangled in my hair, he breathes, "I love you, Bastila. Everything I've done, I've done for you. Even Talravin, I'm doing for you. I love you. Forever."

I'm not sure I believe him, so I say, "Shut up and kiss me, you fool."

He does, and I can forget. For a little while.

But not forever.

**~x~X~x~**


	3. We'll Always Be Okay

_**Chapter 3: We'll Always Be Okay**_

Only after the assembled Sith soldiers and officers have dispersed do I slip like a spirit into the Dark Lord's chambers. Ours is a love born of unbridled passion and loosed restraints, but to outside eyes, it might be perceived as a simple weakness – a cord around our ankles, an unchecked flame, a slow-working poison in our minds. But I know better.

I know that the whirling tempest of emotion between us only makes us stronger, each of us empowering the other through the electric connection of our Force Bond. I know that desire is, perhaps, a sharper sword than a clear mind. I know that love so easily twists into a volatile, ferocious thing – giving birth to jealousy, anger, hunger, need.

I am not gentle with Revan, and he does not coddle me. Should he cease to please me, or I him, our vows spoke nothing of compromise, kindness, or submission. If fate commanded that my love strike me down, he need not hesitate.

This is the essence of the Sith – Master and apprentice, lover and beloved, dealing adoration and anguish in equal measure. We are one being, a single shadow warrior, able to slay the most savage of foes, and yet always at war within. Two continually warring winds in a single violent maelstrom. Thunder and lightning.

I sense the wild, resonant pulse of Revan's power even before I cross the threshold. The chamber is dark, but I see the shape of him shift beneath the shimmersilk sheets, his eyes sliding lazily open at my entrance. The irises gleam like those of a predator, lucid and lupine.

Revan's lips lift into a smile. "Hello," he says.

"Hello." I am keenly aware of the thinness of my nightgown, the deliberate way his eyes rove over my body. My heartbeat flutters to life in my fingertips, my collarbone, the soles of my bare feet. "Sleep evades you?"

"I find you..." He straightens, disentangling his bare chiseled chest from the sheets, and again I am struck by the lightning-charged knowledge that this beautiful, powerful creature belongs to me, and I to him. "...distracting."

His lips graze mine – a soft, light, lingering touch that makes my pulse stammer – and I close my eyes. He tastes faintly of salt from the Rakatan sea, smells like dying embers and tossing oceans. I feel the hard, ropy line along the back of his neck where my saberstaff seared his skin. Even in the dim, synthetic light of the room, my fingers find his face, trace the strong smooth line of his jaw.

I look into his wolfish yellow eyes. "I am difficult to ignore."

His mouth finds mine again, more insistent this time, and I lose myself in the impossible reality of him.

**~x~X~x~**

Asleep in the Dark Lord's arms, I am visited.

"Bastila."

A low, rich voice, not that of a phantom.

My eyelids flutter open, and Revan's chambers have dissolved. Numberless trees stand at attention, their outstretches branches saluting the brilliant sun that hovers in the blue, blue sky. Their wooden fingers cast spidery shadows along the ground. Above me, a bird warbles a melody, then wings away into the ragged wisps of cloud. The breeze plays with my hair, carrying a faintly floral aroma.

"Bastila?" the voice calls out.

My lips are numb, my throat dry. My lungs are empty of words.

"Bastila, I know you're here. Come out. It's alright."

I inhale sharply. _I'm here, _I think. _I'm right here._

Then a bush rustles, a tremulous breath cuts through the birdsong, and a little girl stumbles out of the brush. Leaves are tangled in her brown hair, and something nameless and awful darkens her pale blue eyes.

"Daddy..." the girl gasps.

Now I see him – and my heart is a turbohammer in my chest.

The child leaps into his great strong arms, clings to his neck, shivers against him while he whispers soft assurance. "T-T-There was s-so m-m-much b-b-blood..."

He holds the child securely against him, his chest heaving. "Bounty hunters... are bad men. But I'm here now; I'll keep you safe. You're safe now."

"T-They... k-killed Darren Ulgo."

"Trask's father?"

The girl nods, fresh tears streaming down her cheeks. "Trask is my friend," she says. "And they killed his father, Daddy."

The man's jaw tenses. "What did you see?"

His daughter turns her face away, and from my vantage point, I can see the haunted veil over her eyes, the filmy gleam of terror that will not abate for many nights. Still my legs are rooted to the earth.

"R-R-Red," the girl chokes out. She lifts her head, looks into her father's weary gaze. "What if they try to hurt you, Daddy?"

"They won't."

"What if... they try to hurt _me_?"

The man chokes. "They won't," he says, and he holds his daughter close to his shaking chest, cradling her head against his shoulder. "They _won't_."

The girl wipes her tears away with the back of her hand. "I'll never let anybody hurt you, Daddy."

Without warning, the sky wavers like a sheet. The ground trembles beneath me. Frantically, I glance back at the man and his daughter, but they reveal no reaction, and I realize that my world alone is tearing apart. My head is splitting open, a white light cracking across my skull.

I find my body and lunge forward into the clearing, towards the man and his daughter. At any moment, my heart will splinter my ribs, my feet will sink into the earth if I cannot reach him.

"I'll take you back into the city," the man says, "and we'll bring Trask along with us, and we'll be okay. We'll always be okay. Talravin is a safe planet –"

I am directly in front of them now, but neither father nor daughter pays me mind. On and on the softly spoken words pour out, but I do not hear them. Not anymore.

My legs leaden, I run towards the man. Anguish is rising in my gut, closing up my raw throat.

"– now come home with me, Bastila."

The little girl nods. "Okay."

"_Daddy_!" someone screams, a high sharp plea for one last answer, reverberating off the trees and sky and earth alike. Too late, I realize it's me.

I fall with a cry like a fallen deer, stabbed through the heart by a hunter's arrow. I lay gasping in the dirt. I think that I taste blood, but blood is a rusty, sharp tang on the tongue; this liquid tastes of salt.

It takes all the strength in my body to lift my head.

Her arms around her father's neck, the child before my eyes, the child that Bastila Shan once was, whispers_, _"I'll never let anybody hurt you, Daddy. I promise."

**~x~X~x~**

I awaken in a sweat that drenches me. It is colder than the ice-crag wastelands of Hoth. My heart is ice, the air is bitter, and I'm afraid that if I close my eyes, I'll melt like snow in the rain.

Even in sleep, Revan's arms are tight around me. For the first time, I feel utterly naked – horribly, sickeningly vulnerable before him. I slide loose from his grasp and return to my chambers down the hall, my every footstep echoing off the ancient Rakatan stones that form this temple.

Behind me, my door panel closes with a hiss.

I am alone in midnight's embrace. The darkness welcomes me, clothes me like silk. Quietly, so that Revan will not hear, I bury my head in my hands and sob.

**~x~X~x~**

** A/N: To every one of you who has taken a moment to revive a worn-out writer with a review of this fic (at the moment my only reviews are on Fan Fiction, not Figment,) thank you. I read all the feedback I receive, often returning to it when I need encouragment. Thank you. :)**

** To the reviewer on Fan Fiction who wanted Bastila to remain aligned with the Dark Side of the Force throughout this entire story – I won't tell you where this story is going (picture River Song from Doctor Who... yes, I'm a Whovian, albeit a new one... yelling "SPOILERS!" and you get the picture...,) but I will say that I already have an ending in mind. Whether or not it pleases my readers is out of my control, but as a writer, I need to be true to myself first and foremost. How the plot is received is up to the eyes reading the story.**

** I hope that the ending will make everyone happy, assuming I complete this fic (I may go on periodical hiatus to work on my YA fantasy novel,) but I know that no story can please absolutely every reader. Thank you for your feedback, but I'll leave the story's direction to the characters. ;)**


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